Page 4 of Born to Run Back

I was thinking about her.

“The thing is,” I continued, though I’d lost track of what the thing actually was, “innovation often comes from—from unexpected moments. Encounters that change everything.”

My students exchanged glances. Kevin Park, usually one of my most engaged kids, stared at me like I’d started speaking in tongues.

I cleared my throat and tried again. “What I mean is, the Industrial Revolution wasn’t just about machines. It was about how people responded to a crisis, how they—” My voice caught, and I had to take a sip of lukewarm coffee from the mug that had been sitting on my desk since second period.

…how they held each other when everything fell apart.

“Mr. Garner, maybe we should move on to the next chapter.” This came from Ashley Roberts, whose mother was a nurse and possessed a particular brand of teenage empathy that could cut right through adult pretenses. “We could cover social effects tomorrow, maybe?”

I nodded, eternally grateful to that kid. “Good idea. Pop quiz instead. Everybody take out a sheet of paper.”

The collective groan was familiar, heartening even. While they rustled through their binders and backpacks and complained about not having studied, I retreated to my desk and tried to remember what questions I’d planned to ask about the Industrial Revolution.

But all I could think about were the questions I’d never asked: What was her name? Did she live alone? Did she think about that night as often as I did, like a song stuck on repeat?

The rest of the class period passed in a haze of half-remembered facts and improvised discussion questions. When the bell rang, the students filed out with the particular energy of teenagers released into the wild. A few, however, lingered near my desk.

“Mr. Garner?” Ashley again, her voice gentle. “My mom says teachers get burned out sometimes. Maybe you should talk to someone?”

The kindness in her small, hesitant voice nearly undid me. These kids—God, when had they become so perceptive? When had they started taking care of me instead of the other way around?

“I’m fine,” I said, the lie as bitter as stale coffee. “Just tired. Thank you, though. That means a lot, Ashley.”

After they left, I sat alone in my classroom, surrounded by the familiar detritus of teaching: stacks of ungraded papers, motivational posters about historical thinking, a world map with pins marking all the places I’d planned to visit but probably never would.

The afternoon light slanted through the windows, illuminating dust motes that danced like memories I couldn’t quite grasp.

I was losing it.

Truthfully, I lost it on a rainy night in a ravine I would never be able to leave behind.

My colleague Jessica appeared in the doorway, coffee mug in her manicured hands, expression colored with concern.

We’d worked in adjoining classrooms for six years, shared lunch duty and faculty meetings and the particular exhaustion that came with trying to make teenagers somehow care deeply about the past. Deeply enough to pass, anyway.

“Everything okay in here? The kids seemed worried.”

I glanced up from the quiz papers I’d been pretending to organize.

“Define okay.”

She stepped into the room, closing the door firmly behind her, clicking the lock. “Talk to me, Theo. You’ve been off for weeks. Distracted. The other day you taught the same lesson twice to the same class, during the same period.”

Had I really? The days blurred together these days, a monotonous cycle of classes and insomnia and that relentless pull toward mile marker eighteen. I couldn’t remember what I’d taught yesterday, much less last week.

“Just haven’t been sleeping well,” I said, which was true enough, at least. “You know how it is.”

But Jessica was looking at me with the same expression Ashley had worn—equal parts concern and recognition. The look people gave when they witnessed someone drowning in plain sight. Like the look on that woman’s face the night they’d zipped that kid into the body bag.

The woman I couldn’t forget, no matter how hard I fucking tried.

“When’s the last time you took a real day off?” Jessica asked. “Not a sick day spent grading papers, but an actual day off?”

I couldn’t remember. Before the accident, certainly. Before I’d started this insane ritual of midnight drives and stone offerings and the desperate hope that somehow, someway, I’d see her again.

“I’m fine, Jessica. Really.”

She studied me for another long moment, then shrugged. “Okay, if you say so, boss. But if you need anything—someone to cover a class, someone to talk to—you know where to find me.”

After she left, I gathered my things mechanically, shoving papers into my messenger bag without looking at them.

The drive home felt almost surreal, like I was piloting my car from a great distance, watching myself navigate familiar streets while my mind remained fixed on that stretch of canyon road where everything had changed.

At home, I poured myself a bourbon—earlier than usual, but who was keeping track?

—and sat at my kitchen table, staring at the stack of smooth stones I’d been collecting for the last few weeks.

River rocks, mostly, gathered from the creek behind the school during my lunch breaks.

God knew I couldn’t fucking eat, and besides, I did a good job of telling myself it was merely giving me something to do with my hands.

But I knew better.

Tonight was Tuesday. Sometime tonight, maybe shortly after midnight, I’d be back at mile marker eighteen, adding another stone to our strange, silent conversation. Another offering to whatever this was between us; connection or madness or something that lived in the space between the two.

The bourbon burned on the way down, but not enough to quiet the voice in my head that sounded increasingly like my sister’s, the one that said normal people didn’t do shit like this.

Normal people didn’t build shrines to strangers or skip meals because they were too busy researching accident statistics or lie awake counting the hours until their next ritualistic visit to a roadside memorial.

This isn’t fucking normal, Theo.

She’d said it first four years ago, shortly after the insomnia had taken over. Shortly after our mother had died. Shortly after everything had fallen apart.

But I wasn’t a normal person, was I? I hadn’t been long before that broken woman had collapsed on my chest, sobbing like the world was ending—because to her? It kind of had. Watching kids die fucked anybody up.

I hadn’t been normal then, hadn’t even been normal the moment I’d realized that holding her was the most important thing I’d ever done, would probably ever do.

I was a history teacher who’d forgotten how to teach history, a man who’d spent his entire life maintaining careful boundaries, now losing himself in the dangerous territory of unnamed longing.

Yearning.

And the worst part? The absolute worst part was that I still didn’t want it to stop.

Not even if it killed me.